Friday, December 4, 2009
History of trade
I found a really good article on the history of trade.I quote from the beginning of the article:
Trade provides mankind's most significant meeting place, the market. In primitive societies only religious events - cult rituals, or rites of passage such as marriage - bring people together in a comparable way. But in these cases the participants are already linked, by custom or kinship.
The process of barter brings a crowd together in a more random fashion. New ideas, along with precious artifacts, have always traveled along trade routes. And the natural week, the shared rhythm of a community, has frequently been the space between market days
Agricultural produce and everyday household goods tend to make short journeys to and from a local market. Trade in a grander sense, between distant places, is a different matter. It involves entrepreneurs and middlemen, people willing to accept delay and risk in the hope of a large profit. The archive found at Ebla gives a glimpse of an early trading city, from the middle of the third millennium BC.
When travel is slow and dangerous, the trader's commodities must be as nearly as possible imperishable; and they must be valuable in relation to their size. Spices fit the bill. So do rich textiles. And, above all, precious ornaments of silver and gold, or useful items in copper, bronze or iron.
As the most valuable of commodities (in addition to being compact and easily portable), metals are a great incentive to trade. The extensive deposits of copper on Cyprus bring the island much wealth from about 3000 BC (Cyprus, in Latin, gives copper its name - cyprium corrupted to cuprum).
Later, when the much scarcer commodity of tin is required to make bronze, even distant Cornwall becomes - by the first millennium BC - a major supplier of the needs of Bronze Age Europe.
Read more: http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ab72#ixzz0YkdNkWT4
End quote of article
The author goes on through the various time lines in mans history and he is still working on it! There is so much to say because this is the MOST important thing that ever happened to mankind. Without trade, we would all be wearing homemade clothing and most of us would never have tasted any of the spices we take for granted today.
As the most valuable of commodities (in addition to being compact and easily portable), metals are a great incentive to trade. The extensive deposits of copper on Cyprus bring the island much wealth from about 3000 BC (Cyprus, in Latin, gives copper its name - cyprium corrupted to cuprum).
Later, when the much scarcer commodity of tin is required to make bronze, even distant Cornwall becomes - by the first millennium BC - a major supplier of the needs of Bronze Age Europe.
Read more: http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ab72#ixzz0YkdNkWT4
End quote of article
The author goes on through the various time lines in mans history and he is still working on it! There is so much to say because this is the MOST important thing that ever happened to mankind. Without trade, we would all be wearing homemade clothing and most of us would never have tasted any of the spices we take for granted today.
Blogged with the Flock Browser
No comments:
Post a Comment